Chapter 172: Chapter 99: Change! _1
"So, you’re saying that you’re the wife of the military governor?"
"Yes."
"Hold out your hands."
The noblewoman stretched out her hands, clasping them together.
Zheng Fan reached into his bag, scooped out a handful of fried noodles, placed them in her cupped hands, and also tossed her a waterskin, saying, "Eat."
The noblewoman lowered her head, looked at the fried noodles in her hands, hesitated for a moment, then finally bowed her head and began to take small bites.
Zheng Fan dusted off his hands, stood up, and saw that the young girl at Liang Cheng’s side was also happily eating her share of noodles. This young girl was overly cheerful, seemingly unafraid of her current predicament, and only wanted to stick close to Liang Cheng.
From experience, she was either a bit dense or incredibly precocious, knowing exactly how to act to ensure her own safety.
Night had already fallen. After capturing the mother and daughter, Zheng Fan and his men quickly encountered the Qian army’s cavalry again, leading to another chase.
After shaking off their pursuers, they encountered cavalry once more at dusk. It probably wasn’t the same group as the previous encounter, but regardless, another race ensued.
After managing to shake them off again, it was already deep into the night.
Essentially, after successfully breaking into Mianzhou City the previous night, Zheng Fan and his men had spent an entire day trying to escape the Qian State’s borders, but to no avail.
However, they weren’t anxious. The vast northern territory of the Qian State was an ideal place to play hide-and-seek. Besides, the Qian State’s cavalry, in terms of both quality and quantity, was no match for the Yan State’s cavalry. Their pursuit was inefficient and ineffective.
Zheng Fan’s savage soldiers had experience playing cat-and-mouse games with the Zhenbei Army in the desert. Consequently, facing the Qian cavalry now felt like a trivial affair in comparison.
As for supplies, they weren’t particularly concerned. In the afternoon, they had encountered a caravan. The caravan was very astute; faced with hundreds of formidable cavalrymen, they surrendered immediately.
Since the caravan was so cooperative, Zheng Fan felt obliged to show them some face. After pillaging their food, dry rations, and horses, he let the people and their goods go.
As they were leaving, the caravan’s steward thanked them profusely, saying they had encountered good people.
The reason Zheng Fan was still eating fried noodles was that, by comparison, they were a gourmet meal next to the dry rations the caravan members had been eating.
Seeing Zheng Fan get up and head to the outer perimeter, Liang Cheng also rose and followed. Zheng Fan found a wind-sheltered depression, settled into it, and, as an added precaution, used his helmet to shield the glow of his cigarette as he silently smoked.
After last night’s debacle of being shot while showing off near the city wall, Zheng Fan was now being extremely cautious in every move he made.
Who knew if some skilled archer might be nearby, see the intermittent glow of his cigarette, and decide to take a shot?
"My lord, are you worried?" Liang Cheng squatted beside the depression and asked.
Zheng Fan shook his head, exhaled a ring of smoke, and said, "We’ve circled back around. We should be able to break out through our original route tomorrow."
Throughout the day and the first half of the night, Zheng Fan’s cavalry unit had essentially been riding in circles. After a full day of exertion, their current resting place was actually not far from Mianzhou City.
"If we can rest for the entire second half of the night, we should be able to break out tomorrow. The Qian State’s cavalry lacks both quality and quantity. They’ve been searching for us all day; they must be tired too."
"Hmm."
Zheng Fan grunted in agreement and took another puff of his cigarette.
"My lord, the woman must have mentioned it to you. She suggests we go through the defense zone controlled by her husband."
The military governors in the Qian State did not hold the same immense power as the Tang Dynasty’s military governors in the other world. Comparatively, it was a rank higher than Hui Wenzu in Hutou City. He likely commanded around twenty to thirty thousand border defense troops and was responsible for a defensive sector of fortresses, similar to a powerful commanding general in the Yan State.
Of course, the Qian State’s frontier army had a severe problem with padded payrolls leading to understaffing. Though nominally twenty to thirty thousand strong, their actual numbers were probably closer to ten to twenty thousand.
Seeing that Zheng Fan remained silent, Liang Cheng continued, "She means we can pass through her husband’s defense zone, as long as we keep our promise and release them."
Zheng Fan shook his head, saying, "I don’t trust women."
"..." Liang Cheng.
"What is it?"
"Nothing, my lord. I suspected you might refuse, but I didn’t expect that to be your reason."
"Perhaps I phrased it poorly. I’m not saying I don’t trust women as a gender, but I don’t trust *this* woman’s judgment of her husband. A Cheng, you and I both know how ruthless these predators can be. In the world we came from, people at least maintained a veneer of civility, but here, it’s the raw law of the jungle.
That woman thinks her husband would let us go for her and his daughter’s sake. That’s her perceiving the situation from a wife’s perspective.
I’ve never slept with her husband. How am I supposed to know if he’s one of those once-in-a-century romantics who’d choose a beautiful woman over his career?"
Saying this, Zheng Fan threw his cigarette butt to the ground and stamped it out with his boot, then stated, "We’ll stick to the original plan. If tonight passes peacefully, at first light tomorrow, we’ll charge out the same way we came in."